If You Invested In Apple Stock Instead Of Buying iPhones Each Year, Here's How Much You'd Have Today

Technology giant Apple Inc AAPL recently shared details of its highly anticipated iPhone 15, which is set for a launch later this month.

This marks the latest iPhone to be released in the smartphone series from the company that dates back to 2007.

Here’s a look at the history of the iPhone and how an investment in Apple stock could have done as opposed to buying a new iPhone each year.

What Happened: Apple unveiled the iPhone on Jan. 9, 2007, at its Macworld event. Then CEO Steve Jobs highlighted the smartphone's function of being three combined products: a mobile phone, a widescreen iPod and internet communications.

“iPhone is a revolutionary and magical product that is literally five years ahead of any other mobile phone,” Jobs said at the time. “We are all born with the ultimate pointing device — our fingers — and iPhone uses them to create the most revolutionary user interface since the mouse.”

It was announced the iPhone would be released in June 2007 in the U.S., in late 2007 in Europe, and in 2008 in Asia. The iPhone was given price tags of $499 and $599 in the U.S.

“Apple ignited the personal computer revolution in the 1970s with the Apple II and reinvented the personal computer in the 1980s with the Macintosh,” the company said.

A post on Twitter recently generated reactions after it was unveiled that investing in Apple stock instead of buying the iPhone each year could have made you a millionaire.

A post on Twitter, now known as X, by Sumit Behal said it calculated the return for investors.

“If you had bought Apple shares worth of every new iPhone model on Apple event day from 2007, you would have converted 17,000 dollars to 367 million dollars. Tim Cook will never tell you about this,” Behal tweeted.

The tweet and math were pretty far out there as it calculated the return if you were a fortune teller and knew how many iPhones were going to be released in the future and what their retail prices would be to put that amount into Apple stock.

Benzinga previously shared the return of a $1,000 investment in Apple at the time the iPhone was announced turning into a hypothetical profit of more than $50,000 and a return of over 5,000%.

While Benzinga is known for its share of if you invested $1,000 in stock hypothetical stories over the years, this article is attempting to paint a clearer picture of how investing in Apple stock over buying each new iPhone model would have turned out.

Related Link: Apple Has 'Flex The Muscles' Moment With iPhone 15, Analysts Expect Mini Supercycle 

Investing in Apple Stock over iPhones: Apple released the first iPhone in 2007 and has released a new model every year since that time, with some years having multiple releases and new updates.

For the purpose of this exercise, one new iPhone model was considered for each year. Stock prices are the opening price for each iPhone release date and are split adjusted for a 7-for-1 split in 2014 and a 4-for-1 split in 2020. Dividends are not factored into the starting price or return.

The release dates and starting prices for the iPhone models come from Bankmycell.

Here’s a look at the returns for the iPhones with their release date, starting price, Apple stock price at the time, number of shares that could have been purchased and current value based on Apple shares at $178.19.

• iPhone, June 29, 2007, $499, Apple $4.37 per share, 114.19 shares, $20,338.61
• iPhone 3G, July 11, 2008, $599, Apple $6.27 per share, 95.53 shares, $17,022.49
• iPhone 3GS, June 19, 2009, $599, Apple $4.93 per share, 121.50 shares, $21,650.09
• iPhone 4, June 24, 2010, $599, Apple $9.68 per share, 61.88 shares, $11,026.40
• iPhone 4S, Oct. 14, 2011, $649, Apple $14.89 per share, 43.59 shares, $7,767.30
• iPhone 5, Sept. 21, 2012, $649, Apple $25.09 per share, 25.87 shares, $4,609.78
• iPhone 5S, Sept. 20, 2013, $649, Apple $17.07 per share, 38.02 shares, $6,774.78
• iPhone 6, Sept. 19, 2014, $649, Apple $25.57 per share, 25.38 shares, $4,522.46
• iPhone 6S, Sept. 25, 2015, $649, Apple $28.34 per share, 22.90 shares, $4,080.55
• iPhone 7, Sept. 16, 2016, $649, Apple $28.78 per share, 22.55 shares, $4,018.18
• iPhone 8/X, Sept. 22, 2017, $999, Apple $37.88 per share, 26.37 shares, $4,698.87
• iPhone XS, Sept. 21, 2018, $1,099, Apple $55.19 per share, 19.91 shares, $3,547.96
• iPhone 11, Sept. 20, 2019, $1,099, Apple $55.35 per share, 19.86 shares, $3,538.85
• iPhone 12, Oct. 23, 2020, $999, Apple $116.39 per share, 8.58 shares, $1,528.87
• iPhone 13, Sept. 24, 2021, $1,099, Apple $145.66 per share, 7.54 shares, $1,343.55
• iPhone 14, Sept. 16, 2022, $1,099, Apple $151.21 per share, 7.27 shares, $1,295.44

As you can see from the chart above, each year investing in Apple stock instead of buying an iPhone would have generated a better return for investors, including the release of iPhone 14 last year.

Adding it all up, a person would spend $12,584 to buy a new iPhone model each year since 2007. If that same amount was put into Apple stock each year on the day of the new phone release, an investor would have $117,764.18 today.

This represents a profit of $105,180.18 and a return of 835.8% over the past 16 years.

While you wouldn’t be a millionaire doing the strategy of investing in Apple stock over the iPhone using this method, it represents an impressive return.

Read Next: How To Earn $500 A Month From Apple Stock Just In Time For New Products 
Photo: Shutterstock